Oklahoma State University Athletics
OSU vs. Kansas State Postgame Quotes
February 16, 2013 | Cowgirl Basketball
Feb. 16, 2013
OSU Head Coach Jim Littell
Opening Statement
"We started in a man-to-man up at Kansas State and they just lit us up so I get the bright idea to start off in a zone and here comes five out of six three's, so we made an adjustment and I thought our team did a good job of guarding. They're a difficult team to guard, they get us outside of our comfort zone and I thought our effort was a lot better. We were very dominant on the boards, a 50 to 22 advantage. We really executed well tonight, shot a high percentage because of execution and really pretty pleased with the effort of our team."
On Toni Young
"We said something to Toni at halftime. She scored the first four baskets of the game, then started getting shoved a little bit further away from the basket and was settling for 15-18 foot turnaround jump-shots and we wanted her to establish lower. I'm really proud of what she did in the second half of getting deeper inside, catching the ball, being more of a presence around the box and that settled in a good second half for her."
On Kendra Suttles
"Kendra has a lot of skill with her game. She's crafty, she has that little spin move and she does a lot of things that has a little playground in her game. She played really well, she was encouraging for me in that she was more proud of her 10 rebounds than her 19 points. She's made a conscious effort to do a better job. I thought Liz [Donohoe] did a better job guarding and that helped us out. She had six assists, one turnover and that was key. Tiffany [Bias] did a really nice job of running the ball club tonight. When we limit ourselves to 10 or less turnovers, we usually put points up and are pretty productive. To have eight turnovers was a really good stat for us."
On Defending against Brittany Chambers
"It all goes through her, anytime you look at the score book and she has 25-30 points, you know they are winning. She's a tough player to guard, she explore dribbles, she can shoot the three, she head and shoulder fakes, she can get you in mismatches that causes you to get out on her, she hides behind screens and she's just hard for us to guard. I thought we did a lot better job of being aware of where she was tonight and making her shoot some contested shots."
On Defensive Performance
"We played harder, we were more accountable and we watched film a lot over the first time we played Kansas State and we didn't compete as hard as we needed to compete against a team like that. We talked to our team about getting outside of our comfort zone. Toni sometimes has to guard a little guard out there and it's a challenge doing that when you don't do that your whole career when you have to step up and guard a point guard."
On Adjustments during the Game
We just had to change as coaches and go man-to-man. They shot us out of the zone. We tried to figure out what we did last time they scored 43 in Manhattan in the first and we held them to 20 in the second half of that game, it just went this game. It's just adjustments you have to make during the course of the game and our players made a nice adjustment to that."
Toni Young
On executing well in the paint
"Over the few days we had to get prepared, Coach Littell made sure we battled every day in practice. He just told us to get it inside and make sure we finish over the 5' 9" and 5' 10" guards."
On exploiting Kansas State's weaknesses
"Obviously, they're small. We had to keep up with them to guard them. In the beginning, we just wanted to pound it inside. If we didn't have it inside, we would kick it out."
On getting an important win after losing in Manhattan earlier this year
"I think it's a great win. We got to come back and show the team that we really are. We didn't play too well down there. Coming home, we were able to give our fans a great game to watch."
Tiffany Bias
On defending a heavy dose of three pointers
"It's important to run them off all three-point opportunities. They're a great shooting team, but I think we executed against them well. We made them put the ball on the floor more where they were in attack mode. We didn't want to give them any open shots. You just have to adjust to it."
On all five starters being in double figures
"I think we can easily all be in double figures when we are playing good basketball. That's when we start clicking. If we can just settle down and play our game, we're fine. I think it definitely helped for us all to be in double figures tonight."
Kansas State Head Coach Deb Patterson
On Kansas State's double-digit loss tonight
“Congratulations to Oklahoma State on a dominant performance today. We just were not up to the challenge at all today. Obviously, we were dominated defensively today by Oklahoma State. We were dominated on the boards and found it very difficult to slow them down offensively. It seemed as if Toni started to ignite them early with some great turnarounds and play in the paint. I thought their perimeters were very aggressive today. Brittney Martin just continues to expand her game and to grow her repertoire. She played with great confidence today in hitting those threes. Donohoe was the presence on the board early in the game. It was almost a perfect storm scenario for Oklahoma State today. They played extremely well, and we didn't make much of what they did tough, and if we did, we were not successful.”
On Kansas State's performance before the half
“We never really established that we were going to be aggressive on the defensive boards today, or the offensive boards. I thought we were very passive there. Giving them an extra opportunity on any given possession really started to deflate us. I thought we got real soft and stagnant and stood around a lot on the offensive end. We had a couple turnovers, picked up our dribble some, allowed their defense to dig in, and it seemed as though there wasn't really one particular area they were effective, we were just ineffective relative to their defense, their rebounding, and our defending. At halftime, I thought we had a chance, with a little over four minutes left, to get the game within seven. We were really poor at the foul line today. We missed two there, which would have gotten us close at half. Coming out of the half, we progressively got worse, and they progressively got better.”
On the three-point shooting in the first minutes
“I think it lulled us into a false sense of comfort. I thought we stopped playing hard after that point. Sometimes it can be an illusion to just stand there and feel like the game is going to be easy. Oklahoma State amped up their defense, went to the man, and we never really matched them physically today. It was a dominant game for Oklahoma State. I thought that everyone who took the floor had success by and large, even Lindsey might have missed shots but she rebounded them and kept them in offense, and defensively was physical. It was hard to find a bright spot for us.”
